Appearing as the centerpiece of the cover story on the March 1952 issue of Colliers magazine, this rocket designed by Werner von Braun to transport, or ferry people and material into space, stunned the American audience and displayed the progress that rocket science had made since WWII. This great cut away drawing by Rolf Klep made the spaceship seem real enough to touch.

 

Beginning in 1952 the famous Colliers articles were the first in a series of articles that would have a tremendous influence over space travel and rocket development in the future.

 

Werner von Braun had designed this rocket to ferry tons of material into orbit. That material would be needed for his proposed moon exploration and eventually to travel to Mars. In order to achieve this, the first stage of his large rocket developed 550,000 pounds of thrust and the second stage developed 100,000 pounds of thrust. The third stage was a winged, fly back design like the Space Shuttle. 

 

This beautiful, multistage rocket was very advanced for even today in that it was totally reusable.  The first and second stages would be recovered by parachute.  The third stage had a huge pair of swept wings for its return to Earth.  Even today the Space Shuttle system is not fully recoverable so, in this way, von Braun's 1952 ferry rocket was more advanced.  The ferry rocket was well known in the 1950s, partially because it was featured in a 1953 movie entitled "Spaceways." 

 

The ferry rocket had a tremendous influence over the public’s idea of what a Spaceship should look like.